Seven years has passed?

[Astennu-bleeding-hollow]

From the gist of the side convos at stormwind harbor with gen and turalyon. Shadowlands happened like 7 years ago. That a long time in the death realm surrounded by crazies+ a sylvannas . I hope it’s taken a toll on anduins psych. He needs more rage moments like his father

[Bytalth-sargeras]

Three years ago.

And Shadowlands lasted two.

[Drackonn-lothar]

5 years

/10char

[Mk-kargath]

Alright, one of you is saying 7 years
Another is saying 2-3 years
Another is saying 5 years

Who’s years are canon?

[Nozdormi-stormrage]

Gen is talking about dog years.

[Astennu-bleeding-hollow]

Rude

10char

[Vaslahl-the-scryers]

Total of 5 years
2 in Shadowlands
3 out

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

@Astennu-bleeding-hollow

Shadowlands happened like 7 years ago.

No, five. We spent two in SL and three afterwards.

[Baoleng-moon-guard]

We have official Blizzard posts talking about it. It’s 5 years from the end of the fourth war to Dragonflight: Shadowlands took place over 2, and then there’s a 3 year timeskip between it and DF

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

@Erudician-1641

I wanted to take a moment to address the topic of time passage between Shadowlands and Dragonflight.

There has always been some amount of time passing between expansions, though rarely has it been called out in game. We maintain an internal timeline of what year each expansion begins, and the gap between them has either been one year (as with earlier expansions) or two years (as with most of the later ones). But NPCs in the world don’t talk about how the Burning Crusade took place in the year 26 after the Dark Portal opened, or how we rediscovered Pandaria in the year 30.

When you look back at the Warcraft timeline, one of the things you’ll notice is that a lot of massive, world-changing events were tightly clustered together. This is especially true for WoW, which since launch has seen a multitude of invasions and catastrophes back-to-back in the chronology.

With Shadowlands representing the closing of one book in the Warcraft saga (as we mentioned in interviews around the release of our Eternity’s End update), it felt like an opportunity to give Azeroth and its inhabitants a bit of breathing room before Dragonflight ushers in the start of our next major storyline.

Shadowlands began in the year 35 after the opening of the Dark Portal, and Dragonflight will begin in the year 40.

Given that the events of Shadowlands took place over the course of two years, that leaves a few additional years that we are fast-forwarding through. Our purpose here is not to have a litany of events take place outside the game that you need to read about in a novel or other media to understand the state of the world. The goal of the fast-forward is to provide the people of Azeroth with a slice of “normal” life without a major threat looming over their heads.

When our heroes return from the Realms of Death, you can imagine them easing back into their lives and duties without an immediate crisis to address or enemy to fight. With the Alliance and Horde honoring the truce signed after the Fourth War, the average Azerothian citizen will be able to enjoy a time of stability and reflection.

That said, we plan to offer a digital short story on our website that details one particularly joyous occasion which has been referenced in the alpha build. It’s going to be a fun and charming read, but it won’t be necessary in order to understand the events of Dragonflight.

Besides stretching out the WoW timeline a bit, another benefit of this fast-forward is that it will let our younger characters get a little older, allowing some of them to take a larger role in future storylines. Yet not so much time will be passing that you’d expect characters who are already adults to look significantly different.

As for changes to the world that have been discussed or foreshadowed, such as the resettlement of Gilneas, those will not be happening during the fast-forward. As cool as it is to show locations and populations evolving because of story progression, we want events of this importance to be in-game questing that our players experience for themselves (as with the reclaiming of the Ruins of Lordaeron in the 9.2.5 update) rather than having it happen off-camera.

For your player characters, it has always been left to your own interpretation how much time had passed when they log in after the arrival of a major update or new expansion. Dragonflight is no exception. You are free to imagine what your characters have been doing in that time of respite as you look forward to the arrival of the Dragonflight pre-patch.

Hopefully this post helps clear up confusion about the timeline and explains our goals for having a few more years pass than we normally would.

–Steve Danuser, Narrative Lead

[Breakcog-proudmoore (Breakcog)]

@Astennu-bleeding-hollow

…I hope it’s taken a toll on anduins psych. He needs more rage moments like his father

Unlikely as Anduin has people around him that share the same experiences. (Genn, Jania, Bolvar, Valeera)

[Lillithia-nordrassil]

On the subjects of timeskips a downtime where no large threat is looming makes sense and I am not questioning that. I know some of the lore, not all of it and not as much as I would like. Can some one please tell me are timeskips and downtime standard? If so, is there any good reason in the story itself (and excluding the fact that it may be hard to design an expansion and redesign old areas at the same time) why damages and evidences of previous conflicts, wars, acts of gods don’t ever seem to be repaired?

Some changes may require major terraforming. But I do wonder if some of the refugees on the Alliance and the Horde are ever going to have homes again or is the story just going to take what seems to be the path of least resistance and keep all races in one of two capital cities and one shared city/hub per each expansion?

[Baoleng-moon-guard]

@Lillithia-nordrassil

Can some one please tell me are timeskips and downtime standard?

No, these 3 years are the first timeskip WoW has had since Vanilla

[Lillithia-nordrassil]

Ok, thanks. So lore-wise there hasn’t been lots of time to address some of these things due to more pressing or direct threats.

[Joanna-emerald-dream]

It certainly felt like seven years.

[Tiffany-ravencrest]

@Mk-kargath

Alright, one of you is saying 7 years
Another is saying 2-3 years
Another is saying 5 years

Who’s years are canon?

Canon is a strange word. It claims to describe “reality” in a word that is 100% fiction.

[Sylina-moon-guard]

Man, what happened to Lakeshire afterwards?

You see the town get obliterated by undead in Shadowlands, and it’s implied that a lot of undead were still roaming the Eastern Kingdoms from that Kyrian Questline.

[Thallia-sentinels (Thallia)]

That’s not what canon means.

[Tiffany-ravencrest]

Well when you look up “canon” in the dictionary it talks about rules by which something is judged and books that are sacred. Now there’s nothing sacred about a video game so that leaves the first definition.

Being judged is only as important as the authority doing the judging. Now the author of fiction has an opinion of how things should go which they write down but it’s only the author’s opinion of how the fiction works.

So in this context, canon is reality in a world that is 100% fiction.
For that matter the other definition is the same.